


cursed

by thestral



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 10:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestral/pseuds/thestral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You cut your teeth on the bones of men bigger than you, and the taste of their blood lingers on your lips for years to come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cursed

You cut your teeth on the bones of men bigger than you, and the taste of their blood lingers on your lips for years to come. You are no longer human, your father says the winter the thing comes in your window, the little house covered in snow and your room stinking of your own blood. You're still his little boy, but what you are, what you've become, is not. Your mother-- your little mother, with her hair like yours and big gray eyes, a face drawn and pale but pretty-- tells you that you are still her son, still her baby. You are just cursed, like a character in a fairy tale, only true love's kiss will do nothing to help.

They clean the blood from your bed and your father pretends it never happened, pretends you don't wake up in the night shrieking, the memory of a mouth on your neck and claws in your belly jerking you out of a dead sleep. The fear keeps you awake, night after night, and at first your mother sits with you, pets your hair and reminds you that despite the tiny flecks in your eyes of something inhuman, you are still you. And then you keep waking up. You wake up with more memories each time, until the attack is burned on the insides of your eyelids when you close them, until you know full well what he did to you, although you are only five and you cannot understand.

Your mother stops sitting up with you, and you give up trying. You cry to yourself until you have nothing left, until whatever childhood you could cobble together during the weeks you aren't sick is gone. You are two separate things now, a little boy and a little wolf, and sometimes the wolf seems more important. You hear your father telling your mother that you are no longer going to able to be a wizard, although you feel the magic in your fingers when you're still small, feel the coil in your stomach like a snake about to strike, see the results when you accidentally cast a spell. Your dad is intent on hiding you, keeping you locked away in your room when the moon is full, keeping you locked away in the house even when it's not.

You are small and you are always scared, although you learn to ignore the knot in your chest when your father raises his voice, learn to make yourself small to disguise the thing in your body that is growing too big to contain, growing bigger than you will ever be. Your life is this, stuck in the dreary stone walls of a house you've grown to hate, with books you've read ten times over and a mother growing paler and dimmer by the day, her light snuffing out so slowly you can see it happening. She cries sometimes, when she thinks you can't hear her, when daddy is away at work, and you want to comfort her but you stopped crying years ago. You're too big for that now, swallowed up by the thing that bit you, the thing you are.

Your father insists on hiding you away from everyone else, and you give up hope of ever leaving. It's your fault, he tells you, for leaving the window open. For being foolish, for being silly. For inflicting this on their family, on his mother, on himself. You were attacked because you made a mistake, and this is your punishment. Your mother reads you the stories about the princesses locked away in towers, hidden because of their curses, because of what they were. You don't cry when you read the stories, because a prince always comes and saves them.

You don't need a prince. You just need someone. Anyone will do.

You are eleven when the man comes to your home. Your father locks you in your room and you can barely hear what they're saying, but at the end of it all you meet the man you will someday give too much for. He is tall, with hair grown white and a long beard still flecked with auburn, but his eyes are kindly and he tells you that you will be going to school in September, with all the other kids your age. You will be a wizard yet, get treated like one and get to act like one, and maybe, just maybe, you will have friends. Your father is against it, tries to convince this stranger you'll be safer at home, away from people who might figure it out, but the man wins out eventually.

You have a chance for normalcy handed to you on a silver platter, except you've never been allowed any before. It terrifies you, and you know you must go or you'll never have another chance, but you are different, you are broken, you are cursed. It takes months for you to resign yourself to going, and until you step onto the platform and look at the sleek black train, you are still sure this is a dream, just another part of the stories your mother used to tell you. Her perfume clings to you when you board the train, listen to the sounds of other children, laughter you've never heard before.

You find a small compartment near the back, curl up with your bag, and settle in for the long haul. It's a lonely school year ahead of you. People run up and down the hall outside the spot you selected, yelling to their friends, and you can feel the difference between yourself and them. You're nothing like the other children. You've never even spoken to someone your own age. To the wizarding world, you don't exist, and you spend the train ride curled around yourself, as small as can be, looking out the window at the landscape passing by. You are nothing, no one, barely wanted and hardly a wizard, and you remind yourself of this a dozen times before you reach the school.

It's raining when you get there, the castle a dim black shadow in the distance, and you share the boat to the school with a small, fat boy who gives you a nervous smile before wrapping his hands tightly around the rat in his palm, leaning over it like a prayer. You watch him for a moment, but the boys on another boat distract your attention. They're loud, boisterous, teasing another small boy with a hooked nose and sallow eyes, and you can't help yourself as you stare.

They're the princes from your mother's stories, handsome and charming, with crooked grins and matching expressions of mischievousness. You don't know it yet but the pale-eyed boy with the rat, watching the pair with a flickering smile, is one of them, too. They never break the curse, but they make it better, and you, the small, scared boy with the monster inside, are finally loved.


End file.
